Ronald Hannah (b.1945)
Five Variations on a theme of Violet Archer (1975)
Five Preludes for organ (1979)
Suite for Elan (1980)
Ballade (1994-2001)
Dances for Camille (2013)
Domestic Dialogues (2020)
Suite 75 (2021)
Christopher Devine (piano), Marnie Giesbrecht (organ), Kei Endo (piano), Sylvia Shadick-Taylor (piano), Christopher Devine and Mehrdokht Manavi (pianos), Zuzana Šimurdová and Mikolaj Warszynski (pianos), Jeffrey Greiman (piano)
No recording details
PGM Audio 2201-2 [71]
This is my second audition of the music of the Canadian-born but Austrian-resident Ronald Hannah, now in his late 70s and in fine fettle. That last encounter was of his chamber music (review) which showed his ‘dissonant tonality’ working to good effect across a range of works, new and old. This latest release is devoted to his keyboard music, largely for piano, but with Five Preludes for Organ interspersed throughout the programme. The music was composed between 1975 and 2021 and is presented in largely chronological form, though as noted the Preludes, composed in 1979, break things up.
In addition to the organ Preludes, there are works are for solo piano, two pianos and piano four-hands. Each is neatly characterised and appealing. The inspiration for much of the music – an admired teacher, the arrival of his daughters, the impetus of a set for himself and his wife to play together – is the essential spine of the compositions. Taking the pieces in order of composition we start with the Five Variations on a theme of Violet Archer, his teacher, who had been a Bartók pupil. Though there are hints of that inheritance in Hannah’s tribute to her, not least in the occasionally terse and aggressive, almost barbaro elements of the music, there are also definite suggestion of another influence, that of Satie.
Suite for Elan, also for solo piano, dates from 1980 is named after his first daughter. Each of the movements carries evocative titles such as ‘Sparkling Laughter’ and ‘Chasing Butterflies’ and the music has Schumannesque charm, Satie stillness, and darting incision – affectionate character studies. The Ballade for solo piano had a longer gestation period and covers the period when Hannah was experimenting with twelve-tone which he does with some very purposeful writing.
Written for two pianos in 2013 Dances for Camille, another daughter, is a playful series of five inventive terpsichorean movements, from a crisp Habanera through a quietly melancholic Pavane to a very slightly Ivesian Cakewalk to a jovial Tarantella. The Domestic Dialogues (piano four-hands) are very recent, dating from 2020 and offer congenial exchanges and amusing interplay for the performers, and that includes some tranquil, nocturnal music as well as a Handelian quotation and a dapper march complete with in-built ‘mistake’. The most recent piece is Suite 75, from 2021, that marked Hannah’s birthday. Once again, he’s not afraid to unveil his admiration for Satie in this concise and playful piece. The Organ Preludes were written in England to a commission. They’re full of flowing, dissonant writing, atmospheric and measured by turn or else scrunchy and resonant.
The Ballade is the same performance as on the chamber music disc already noted and reviewed, and played by Sylvia Shadick-Taylor, the Organ Preludes come from Arktos 94 001. No performance is dated or locations provided, so far as I can see. Recorded quality varies a little, from rather dry to a more expansive acoustic, but nothing should put you off. Hannah has an engaging knack for communicative generosity and this disc reinforces the fact.
Jonathan Woolf
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